520 


GIFT  OF 


MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 


BOSTON 


1870-1920 


MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 

BOSTON 

\\ 

1870-1920 


:  /-. **':        Gift 

FROM  THE  ACT  OF 
INCORPORATION,  FEBRUARY  4,  1870 

Section   1.    MARTIN  BRIMMER,  CHARLES  C.  PERKINS,  CHARLES  W. 
ELIOT,  WILLIAM  ENDICOTT,  Jr.,  SAMUEL  ELIOT,  FRANCIS  E.  PARKER, 
HENRY  P.  KIDDER,  WILLIAM  B.  ROGERS,  GEORGE  B.  EMERSON,  OTIS 
NORCROSS,  JOHN  T.  BRADLEE,  and  BENJAMIN  S.  ROTCH,  together  with 
three  persons  to  be  annually  appointed  by  the  President  and  Fellows 
of  Harvard  College,  with  the  consent  of  the  Board  of  Overseers,  three 
persons  to  be  annually  appointed  by  the  Trustees  of  the  Boston  Athe- 
naeum, and  three  persons  to  be  annually  appointed  by  the  Massachusetts 
Institute  of  Technology,   if  the  said   corporations   shall  make  such 
appointments,  and  the  Mayor  of  the  City  of  Boston,  the  President  of 
the  Trustees  of  the  Public  Library,  and  the  Superintendent  of  Public 
Schools  of  said  city,  the  Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Education,  and  the 
Trustee  of  the  Lowell  Institute,  ex  officiis,  are  hereby  made  a  body 
corporate,  by  the  name  of  the  Trustees  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  for 
the  purpose  of  erecting  a  Museum  for  the  preservation  and  exhibition 
of  works  of  art,  of  making,  maintaining  and  exhibiting  collections  of 
such  works,  and  of  affording  instruction  in  the  Fine  Arts,  with  all  the 
powers  and  privileges,  and  subject  to  all  the  duties,  liabilities,  and 
restrictions  set  forth  in  Chapter  sixty-eight  of  the  General  Statutes, 
and  acts  in  addition  thereto. 

TRUSTEES  OF  THE  MUSEUM  1920 

HOLKER  ABBOTT  MORRIS  GRAY 

THOMAS  ALLEN  AUGUSTUS  HEMENWAY 

HENRY  FORBES  BIGELOW  EDWARD  JACKSON  HOLMES 

WILLIAM  STURGIS  BIGELOW  ALEXANDER  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLO 

CHARLES  KNOWLES  BOLTON  ABBOTT  LAWRENCE  LOWELL 

GEORGE  HENRY  CHASE  ALEXANDER  MANN 

JOHN  TEMPLEMAN  COOLIDGE  ANDREW  JAMES  PETERS 

JOSEPH  RANDOLPH  COOLIDGE,  Jr.  DUDLEY  LEAVITT  PICKMAN 

CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT  DENMAN  WALDO  Ross 

WILLIAM  ENDICOTT  CHARLES  SPRAGUE  SARGENT 

WILLIAM  CROWNINSHIELD  ENDICOTT  HENRY  LEE  SHATTUCK 

DESMOND  FITZGERALD  PAYSON  SMITH 

EDWARD  WALDO  FORBES  ELIHU  THOMSON 

GEORGE  PEABODY  GARDNER  FRANK  VICTOR  THOMPSON 
•  GEORGE  ROBERT  WHITE 


MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 

BOSTON 

1870-1920 


71.  Qu.  Whether  Pictures 
and  Statues  are  not  in  fact 
so  much  Treasure  ?  And 
whether  Rome  and  Florence 
would  not  be  poor  Towns 
without  them  ? 

Bishop  BERKELEY, 

"The  Querist,"  1735. 


HCNTINGTON  AVENUE  ENTRANCE 


THE  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS  in  Boston  occupies  a 
unique  position  among  the  greater  museums  of  the 
country,  and  perhaps  of  the  world,  in  that 
it  was  created  and  has  been  supported  to         p,       » 
this  day  solely  by  private  citizens;    and 
not  a  few  only,  but  thousands  and  even 
tens  of  thousands.    It  remains  for  the  citizenship  of  the 
present  to  acknowledge  the  unusual  honor  of  this  burden 
by  continuing  to  bear  it  in  a  way  to  do  credit  to  its 
brilliant  past. 

The  first  to  be  named  in  the  long  and  distinguished  line 
of  those  who  have  joined  in  making  the  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts  what  it  is  are  the  few  far-sighted  men,  who,  about 
fifty-five  years  ago,  together  transferred  to  the  City  a  con- 
siderable plot  of  ground  in  the  then  Back  Bay  Fens,  to  be 
held  as  a  public  trust,  for  eventual  use  either  as  a  public 


545132 


4  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 

square  or  for  an  institute  of  fine  arts.  In  fulfilment  of 
the  condition,  when,  some  years  later,  representatives  of 
several  societies  and  institutions  —  the  Athenaeum,  Har- 
vard College,  and  the  Institute  of  Technology  among  them 
—  proposed  the  foundation  of  a  museum  of  art,  the  City 
offered  the  restricted  plot  under  the  proviso  that  the 

Museum  should  be  free 
to  all  at  least  four  days  a 
month.  From  the  begin- 
ning it  was  free  on  Sat- 
urdays, and  within  a 
year,  by  the  addition  of 
Sunday,  the  provision 

THE  FIRST  HOME  OF  THE  MUSEUM  WaS  doubly  fulfilled. 

Athenaeum  Galleries,  1S72  N(>Wj  &t  ^  ^mi-centen- 

nial, the  Museum  is  open  free  to  all  at  all  times,  excepting 
on  the  three  chief  holidays,  national,  social,  and  religious, 
of  every  year  —  July  4,  Thanksgiving,  and  Christmas. 

The  second  gift  to  the  Museum  likewise  gave  evidence  of 
an  interest  in  the  project  outside  the  circle  of  its  immediate 
promoters.  The  fund  for  the  bronze  statue  of  Edward 
Everett,  now  standing  in  the  square  of  that  name  in  Dor- 
chester, had  been  over-subscribed,  and  as  soon  as  the  Mu- 
seum received  its  charter,  in  1870,  the  committee  in  charge 
of  the  memorial  turned  over  the  balance,  amounting  to 
about  $7500,  to  the  newly  appointed  Trustees,  who  have 
continued  to  hold  it  as  a  permanent  fund,  employing  the 
income  at  their  discretion. 

Among  the  sponsors  for  the  Museum  themselves,  the 
initial  effort  to  obtain  money  took  the  form  of  a  popular 
subscription  for  the  first  section  of  the  buildng  planned  to 
be  erected  in  Copley  Square  on  the  property  just  received 
by  deed  from  the  City.  A  quarter  of  a  million  dollars  was 
eventually  obtained  from  more  than  a  thousand  givers  in 


FUNDS 


THE  FIRST  MUSEUM  OK  COPLEY  SQUABE 

sums  ranging  from  thirty-five  cents  to  twenty-five  thou- 
sand dollars.  Two  years  later,  one  hundred  other  gifts, 
amounting  to  half  this  sum,  were  obtained  for  an  addition 
to  the  building  in  sums  from  one  dollar  to  ten  thousand 
dollars;  and  nine  years  afterward  for  another  addition 
another  quarter  of  a  million  dollars  was  subscribed  in  sums 
from  one  dollar  to  twenty-four  thousand. 

Meantime  the  initiative  of  the  Everett  trustees  had  be- 
gun to  bear  its  fruits.  Considerable  gifts  of  money,  to- 
gether with  a  bequest,  are  recorded  within  a  few  months 
after  the  opening  of  the  first  wing  of  the  first  building  in 
Copley  Square;  and  during  the  fifty  years  that  have 
elapsed  since,  the  number  of  those  who  have  contributed 
to  the  permanent  endowment  of  the  Museum  by  bequest  or 
gift  has  risen  to  about  one  hundred.  Only  two  of  the  funds 
so  established  exceed  three  hundred  thousand  dollars :  one 
consisting  of  property  assessed  at  above  that  figure  in  1912 
and  worth  much  more,  and  one  of  eight  hundred  thousand 
dollars,  received  in  1898.  Among  the  other  funds  now  held 
by  the  Trustees,  there  is  one  of  five  hundred  dollars,  there 


6  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 

are  several  of  a  thousand,  many  of  ten  thousand,  a  number 
of  one  hundred  thousand,  and  a  few  above  that  figure.  Al- 
though the  roll  of  testators  and  givers  recalls  many  of 
those  most  active  in  the  Museum  during  life,  it  names 
also  many  of  whom  the  Museum  first  heard  through  their 
generous  farewell.  The  Museum  knew  nothing  of  the  char- 
itable intention  of  the  two  friends  who  in  1895  joined  in 
bequeathing  funds  of  fifty  thousand  dollars  each  for  the 
purchase  of  modern  pictures;  nor  was  it  known  that  the 
master  of  a  Boston  school  had  looked  forward  to  making 
the  Museum  his  heir  until  in  the  same  year  a  bequest  of 
ninety -three  thousand  dollars  revealed  the  fact. 

To  the  group  of  a  hundred  benefactors  who  have  en- 
dowed the  Museum  and  to  the  many  hundreds  who  con- 
tributed to  its  first  building,  there  have  added  themselves 
in  the  course  of  its  life  many  thousands  of  givers  of  money 
for  its  current  maintenance  and  expansion.  Chief  among 
the  number  are  the  Subscribers  to  the  Museum,  whose 
annual  gifts  have  risen  from  $11,000  in  1889  to  over 
$50,000  in  1920. 

The  idea  of  founding  a  museum  of  art  in  Boston  owed  its 
origin  to  the  same  public  spirit  that  responded  to  the  sug- 
gestion by  creating  and  maintaining  the 
Collect' on       institution.  The  owners  of  several  collec- 
tions of  art  desired  to  make  them  more 
generally  available  to  the  public  in  a  cen- 
tral place.  Harvard  College  wished  to  show  its  engravings; 
the  Institute  of  Technology  its  architectural  casts;  and  the 
Athenaeum  its  pictures,  sculptures,  and  other  objects. 
For  years  the  contents  of  the  Museum  continued  to  be 
mostly  the  possessions  of  others,  temporarily  shown  here; 
and  loans  from  both  public  and  private  sources  still  are  and 
always  will  be  a  large  element  in  the  exhibits.    Several  of 


COLLECTIONS 


JOHN  HANCOCK  /.  S.  Copley  (1737-1815) 

the  Revolutionary  portraits  shown  at  the  Museum  are 
loans  by  the  city  of  Boston,  transferred  from  Faneuil  Hall 
where  their  places  are  taken  by  copies.  The  Institute  of 
Technology  eventually  withdrew  its  casts,  and  Harvard 
College  its  engravings  for  independent  exhibition  else- 
where. But  the  collections  of  the  Athenaeum  became  an 
indefinite  deposit  —  an  earnest  of  the  gifts  outright  by 
which  the  Museum  was  largely  to  grow.  In  1874,  while  the 
first  building  was  still  a  project,  Senator  Sumner  be- 
queathed to  the  Trustees  a  collection  of  paintings  and 
engravings ;  and  the  first  exhibition  by  the  Museum  in  the 
Athenaeum  building,  two  years  before,  had  included  a 
number  of  gifts  from  many  sources,  among  them  an  im- 
portant collection  of  Egyptian  antiquities. 

Conspicuous  in  the  Athenaeum  deposit  are  the  portraits 
of  George  Washington  and  Martha  Washington,  by  Gil- 
bert Stuart,  by  which  these  two  bodily  presences  will  best 


8 


MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON  AND  MARTHA  WASHINGTON 


Gilbert  Stuart  (1755-1828) 


be  known  for  all  the  future.  The  Athenaeum  itself  re- 
ceived them  as  a  gift  from  an  association  of  gentlemen 
nearly  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  has  deposited  them  with 
the  Museum,  at  once  for  their  greater  publicity  and  their 
greater  security.  The  portraits  are  unfinished,  and  a  famil- 
iar anecdote  of  the  painter  tells  the  reason;  but  the  past 
history  of  most  of  the  acquisitions  of  the  Museum  is  prac- 
tically unknown  to  us. 

The  stories  that  the  exhibits  of  a  great  museum  could  tell 
are  always  romantic  narratives.  All  would  help  us  on  that 
difficult  journey  toward  the  soul  of  the  past  that  we  must 
begin  in  the  face  of  every  object  in  a  museum  of  art  if  it  is 
to  be  to  us  what  the  artist  meant  it  should  be.  Never  to 
set  out  on  this  journey  is  never  to  be  wholly  human,  wide 
as  the  world  of  the  present  seems  and  is.  It  is  true  that 
at  every  turn  of  the  way  we  are  amazed  at  the  inspiration 
and  ingenuity  with  which  man  has  patiently  wrought  in  the 
past,  only  thereafter  with  vacant  mind  to  take  his  creations 
piece  from  piece  or  let  them  fall  in  ruin. 

While  the  Museum  was  still  young,  a  group  of  Boston- 
ians  were  travellers  and  students  in  Japan.  The  nation  was 


COLLECTIONS 


9 


BRONZE  "  Yu  " 
Chinese,  Twelfth  Century  B.C. 


just  then  in  the  throes  of  its  rebirth.  The  Japanese  were  in 
the  mood  to  dispose  of  any  immemorial  treasures  —  pic- 
tures, prints,  sculptures,  arms, 
ivories,  lacquers  —  as  never 
before  and  never  since;  and 
the  travellers  were  ready  to 
study  and  acquire  them.  The 
Museum  was  the  fortunate  de- 
pository  of  the  trophies  they 
brought  back,  and  in  1890 
an  addition  to  the  Copley 
Square  building  was  erected 
to  house  the  new  department. 
A  collection  of  the  ceramic  art 
of  Japan  more  complete  than 
all  other  museums  put  to- 
gether can  show  was  a  part  of  the  acquisitions  and  was 
purchased  for  the  Museum  by  subscriptions  from  many 
friends.  The  rest  were  placed  on  permanent  loan  and  have 
since  become  gifts.  The  im- 
petus thus  received  has  been 
maintained  by  noteworthy 
purchases  and  accelerated  by 
gifts  hardly  less  important,  in 
large  part  from  another  trav- 
eller. A  fortunate  conjunc- 
tion .of  opportunity,  ability, 
and  generosity  has  brought 
together  in  our  Museum  a 
more  important  collection  of 
Japanese  and  Chinese  art 
than  exists  anywhere  else  in  the  world  under  one  roof;  and 
has  since  provided  unexampled  facilities  for  the  study  of 
the  culture  from  which  the  objects  sprang.  Many  of  these 


(c.  1615-SO) 


10 


MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 


MADONNA  AND  CHILD  WITH  ST.  JEROME 
Fiorenzo  di  Lorenzo  (c. 


acquisitions  date  from  a  past  that  makes  the  age  of  like 
objects  of  European  origin  seem  youth.  One,  a  sacrificial 
wine-  jar,  or  "yu,"  of  bronze,  now  resplendent  with  a  bright 
green  patina,  was  made  to  accompany  the  worship  of  the 
faithful  in  a  Chinese  temple  long  before  the  Greeks  had 
learned  to  cast  in  metal.  Nevertheless,  the  symbolism 
which  its  makers  used  in  ornamenting  it  was  already  con- 
secrated by  centuries  of  tradition.  Another,  a  Buddhist 
altarpiece,  a  so-called  "Hokke  Mandara"  (Lotus  Paradise), 
was  painted  on  silk  in  China  while  King  Alfred  was  ruling 
England.  An  inscription  on  the  back  tells  of  its  repair  in  a 
Japanese  monastery  in  March,  1143,  nearly  two  centuries 
before  Cimabue  created  the  art  of  painting  for  modern 
Europe.  Chiefly  by  gift  also,  the  Museum  has  lately  be- 
come the  possessor  of  a  collection  of  the  art  of  India,  now 


COLLECTIONS 


11 


the  most  considerable  in  America.  The  stories  of  its  past 
will  never  be  told,  nor  shall  we  ever  know  a_thousand 
others  like  them.  The  delicate  marble  torso  of  a  maiden 
long  a  loan  and  now  a  gift  to  the  Museum  is  purely  a  piece 
of  flotsam  in  the  history  of  art,  a  jewel  without  the  suspi- 
cion of  a  setting  save  as  it  proves  itself  from  a  Greek 
hand.  A  little  altarpiece 
with  the  freshness  of  im- 
mortal youth  has  just 
found  its  way  to  our  gal- 
leries from  some  shrine  in 
Umbria  and  from  the 
hand  of  the  master  of  Pe- 
rugino,  himself  the  master 
of  Raphael.  How  came  it 
so  untouched  through  five 
tumultuous  centuries  ? 
This  story,  too,  will  never 
be  told.  Pictures,  prints, 
fragments  of  sculpture, 
tapestries,  fabrics,  por- 
celains, enamels,  musical 
instruments,  furniture,  metal  work,  cast  and  wrought  — 
the  Museum  has  been  richly  dowered  with  all  of  these, 
singly  and  in  collections,  during  every  year  of  its  life,  by 
many  givers,  often  by  the  same  giver  many  times.  All  are 
still  eloquent  with  the  messages  their  makers  bade  them 
carry,  but  most  of  them  silent  about  the  vicissitudes  that 
brought  them  here.  Of  an  exquisite  marble  relief  of  the 
Madonna  and  Child  from  the  fifteenth  century,  lately  a 
gift  to  the  Museum,  we  know  only  that  at  the  time  the 
Museum  was  founded  it  stood  between  porphyry  columns 
in  the  shadows  of  a  private  chapel  in  a  princely  villa  among 
the  Carrara  mountains  in  Italy.  The  family  possessions 


MADONNA  AND  CHILD 
Francesco  di  Simone  (d.  1493) 


12  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 

were  dispersed,  and  the  relief,  after  half  a  century  in  a 
private  collection  in  Boston,  has  at  length  come  to  the 
Museum  to  help  make  Filippo  Lippi,  the  painter-priest  of 
Florence,  and  Verrocchio,  the  teacher  of  Leonardo  da 
Vinci,  real  beings  to  those  who  can  read  their  influence  in 
the  lines  of  the  marble.  Another  gift  brings  back  pre- 

Victorian  England.  The 
Museum  collection  of 
prints  from  the  Liber  Stu- 
diorum  of  Turner,  lately 
enlarged  by  a  conspic- 
uous bequest,  is  now 
unequalled  elsewhere  in 
size  and  excellence. 

Gifts  to  a  museum  are 
the  favor  of  Heaven;  and 
there  is  a  like  incalculable 
quality  about  two  other 
classes  of  acquisitions  to 
which  our  Museum  owes 
its  eminence  in  two  other 
departments.  In  the 
main  the  present  Egyp- 
tian collections  of  the  Museum  consist  of  the  share  awarded 
to  it  by  the  Government  of  Egypt  in  the  results  of  excava- 
tions in  that  country  conducted  during  a  number  of  years 
past  at  the  expense  of  a  few  citizens  of  Boston.  In  the  main 
also  it  is  through  the  patient  skill  of  one  connoisseur  who 
for  years  was  a  buyer  in  the  interest  of  the  Museum  in 
Europe  that  the  collection  of  Greek  and  Roman  art  excels 
in  quality  all  others  in  America. 

Among  the  Egyptian  finds  an  alabaster  head  of  the 
pyramid-builder  Mycerinus  —  he  whose  oracular  death 
sentence  is  recorded  by  Herodotus  and  recalled  in  Matthew 


MYCERINUS  AND  HIS  QUEEN 

Egyptian,  2800  B.C. 


COLLECTIONS 


13 


Arnold's  poem — lay  broken  and  concealed  for  the  five  mil- 
lennia since  his  day  at  the  edge  of  a  path  that  leads  to  the 
Great  Pyramids  from  Cairo.  A  chance  thrust  of  some 
traveller's  stick  at  just  the  right  spot  in  the  sand  would 
have  unearthed  it,  and  millennia  ago  it  might  have  been 
burned  in  a  kiln,  walled  in  a  house,  or  carried  off  to  orna- 
ment a  Roman  villa.  But  no  one  disturbed  it  during  all 
recorded  history,  until  a  workman's  spade  in  these  last 
years  by  good  fortune  turned  it  up;  and  it  is  now  one  of  the 
prizes  of  our  Museum.  A  still  greater  prize  is  the  double  por- 
trait-statue of  the  same  king 
and  his  wife,  nearly  life  size, 
of  slate;  even  to  our  modern 
eyes  an  embodiment  of 
manly  dignity  and  womanly 
grace.  It  was  found  in  the 
same  campaign  in  which  the 
age-long  riddle  of  the  Sphinx 
was  finally  solved  by  evidence 
which  proved  it  the  portrait- 
head  of  another  pyramid- 
builder,  Chephren,  hewn  from 
a  jutting  cliff.  With  the  life 
size  portrait-statue  of  that  king,  of  diorite,  now  preserved 
in  the  Cairo  Museum,  our  pair  shares  the  honor  of  repre- 
senting the  high-water  mark  of  all  Egyptian  sculpture  in 
the  round.  It  is  almost  incredible  that  a  prize  of  such  value 
from  far  antiquity  should  exist  here  in  America.  The  cost 
of  its  excavation  in  money  was  in  comparison  insignificant 
-  it  is  true  the  dexterity  and  knowledge  that  guided  the 
workmen  is  beyond  price. 

The  chances  which  have  befallen  the  treasures  of  our 
Classical  collections  are  not  less  remarkable  so  far  as  they 
are  discoverable.  A  portrait-bust  of  Homer,  unique  in  its 


HOMER 


Hellenistic  Greek 


14 


MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 


grasp  of  the  Homeric  ideal,  was  one  of  the  gems  of  the 
Naples  Museum  when  that  collection  was  still  the  private 
cabinet  of  the  Bourbon  sovereigns  of  South  Italy.  Who 
would  have  imagined  that  another  of  equal  rank  as  a 
work  of  art,  perhaps  even  more  powerful  in  execution, 
could  have  been  found  in  Europe  in  these  later  years?  Yet 
such  a  marvel  was  discovered,  acquired,  and  now  stands 
among  our  Classical  sculptures.  Its  opposite  neighbor  in 
the  gallery,  the  head  of  a  youthful  goddess,  came  to  light 
on  the  Island  of  Chios,  now  happily  a  Christian  possession, 

but  in  Byron's  time  the  scene 
of  the  massacre  by  the  Turks 
that  inspired  the  famous 
painting  by  Delacroix.  The 
melting  beauty  of  this  head 
seems  an  anticipation  of  Ro- 
din; and  the  admiration 
which  that  great  sculptor 
paid  the  marble  when  it  was 
shown  in  London  will  hang 
upon  it  like  invisible  laurel 
always.  Another  head,  also 

Greek,  Fourth  Century  B.C.         f  ^  ft  praxitelean  rf^  and 

imaging  Aphrodite,  possesses  a  depth  of  intimate  charm 
that  fills  one  with  regret  for  the  lost  body  it  completed. 
The  apex  of  mystery  surrounding  the  fragments  from 
Greek  antiquity  possessed  by  the  Museum  is  reached  in 
the  greatest  treasure  of  the  whole  collection — the  three- 
sided  relief  acquired  ten  years  ago  and  called  from  its  form 
"The  Throne."  Only  two  such  triple  reliefs  exist.  The 
other  is  a  possession  of  the  Italian  government,  and  was 
discovered  a  generation  or  more  ago  in  the  grounds  of  the 
Ludovisi  Palace  in  Rome.  The  riddle  of  their  purpose  is 
insoluble  as  yet,  and  the  meaning  of  the  scenes  depicted  on 


APHRODITE 


COLLECTIONS  15 

their  sides  is  still  a  fascinating  puzzle  of  archaeology.  The 
only  certain  thing  about  both  is  their  impressive  beauty 
and  the  characteristics  which  prove  them  products  of  the 
glorious  age  of  Marathon  and  Salamis.  Perhaps  they 
imaged  episodes  of  the  passion  burning  for  the  victors  in 
the  hearts  of  deep-bosomed  maidens  watching  their  return 
from  islet  and  promontory.  Were  it  so,  how  eloquently 
must  the  marbles  have  spoken  of  the  new  life  before  man 
and  maid !  Perhaps  they  were  the  ends  of  some  high  altar, 
between  which  sacrifices  were  heaped;  while  priests  and 
people  passed  before  them,  and  through  green  boughs 
and  over  green  sward  behind  them  flashed  the  sapphire 
and  diamond  of  Mediterranean  waves. 

Direct  purchases  without  the  intervention  of  a  special 
representative  of  the  Museum  have  always  been  the  least 
prolific  source  of  acquisitions  by  the  Trustees.  Distance 
and  the  delays  incident  to  concerted  action  are  handicaps. 
The  altarpiece  of  the  Convent  of  St.  Anthony  from  Ra- 
phael's hand,  not  without  aid  since  from  restorers,  was  long 
offered  for  sale  in  Paris  at  a  million  francs  and  nicknamed 
"Le  Raphael  d'un  Million"  When  the  offer  was  met  in 
Boston  the  price  advanced  in  Paris,  and  years  later  the 
picture,  now  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum,  New  York,  was 
bought  for  America  at  a  figure  reported  to  be  very  much 
higher.  Nevertheless,  the  flow  of  offers  for  purchase  in  any 
large  museum  is  constant,  and  to  the  acceptance  of  such 
opportunities  the  Museum  owes  many  important  acquisi- 
tions both  of  single  objects  and  of  collections.  A  list  of  the 
titles  would  be  as  long  and  imposing  as  the  roster  of  the 
hosts  in  the  second  book  of  the  Iliad  —  and  hardly  more 
profitable  reading.  In  all  the  galleries  there  are  instances 
of  purchases  formerly  familiar  in  the  Museum  as  loans. 
The  celebrated  "Slave  Ship,"  by  J.  M.  W.  Turner,  in  the 
possession  of  Ruskin  until  he  found  its  tragic  import  too 


16  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 


LA  CuRtE  G.  Courbet  (1819-1877) 

overpowering  for  daily  companionship,  was  many  times 
shown  at  the  Museum  before  taking  up  its  permanent  place 
here.  "The  Quarry,"  by  Courbet,  purchased  in  1918,  had 
been  exhibited  in  the  Museum  at  intervals  for  forty  years. 
Conditions  attached  to  several  of  the  funds  bequeathed 
to  the  Museum  restrict  their  use  to  the  purchase  of  modern 
paintings.  The  restriction  expresses  a  very  general  feeling 
that  the  Museum  should  supplement  its  collections  of 
recondite  treasures  from  remote  civilizations  by  things 
nearer  to  ourselves  and  hence  more  easily  comprehensible. 
Through  the  use  of  these  funds  the  Museum  has  acquired 
"The  Lion  Hunt,"  by  Delacroix,  "The  Falls  of  the  Rhine," 
by  Turner,  "Caritas,"  by  Thayer,  "All's  Well,"  by  Homer, 
a  collection  of  water-colors  by  John  S.  Sargent,  and  many 
other  notable  pictures.  In  broad  public  appeal  our  Colo- 
nial period  is  also  modern,  and  the  recent  steps  taken 
by  the  Museum  toward  the  eventual  establishment  of  a 


COLLECTIONS  17 

Department  of  Colonial  Art  are  responses  to  the  same 
feeling.  Boston  is  rich  in  portraits  dating  from  the  time 
when  it  was  a  metropolis  of  colonial  life,  and  the  generosity 
of  many  friends  has  already  given  the  Museum  an  excep- 
tional foundation  for  such  a  department.  A  different  duty 
has  been  recognized  at  the  Museum  toward  modern  art  in 
the  sense  of  contemporary  work,  and  particularly  the  work 
of  Boston  artists.  It  is 
true  that  works  of  art  are 
not  normally  produced 
for  exhibition  in  a  mu- 
seum. They  belong  first 
of  all  where  people  daily 
live  and  meet,  in  homes 
and  in  public  places.  Not 
the  patronage  of  art,  but 
its  conservation,  is  the 
proper  function  of  mu- 
seum boards  and  commit- 
tees. Nevertheless,  the 
galleries  in  their  charge 
may  offer  a  means  of 
aiding  current  production 

without  dereliction  to  their  primary  function.  In  the  final 
scheme  of  the  present  building  of  the  Museum,  one  of  the 
large  courts  where  casts  of  sculpture  are  now  shown  is  to 
be  devoted  to  temporary  exhibitions,  a  separate  basilica  of 
casts  housing  the  reproductions  of  sculpture.  Already  the 
Court  is  often  provisionally  installed  for  this  purpose; 
and  the  future  may  bring  a  constant  succession  of  tempo- 
rary exhibitions  in  which  current  work  and  living  men  may 
have  their  full  opportunity  of  publicity.  The  Museum 
cannot  otherwise  do  its  full  duty  toward  the  art  of  the 
time  and  the  place. 


18 


MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 


LIBRARY  OF  THE  MUSEUM 

A  collection  of  books  and  photographs  for  the  use  pri- 
marily of  the  officers  of  the  Museum  and  secondarily  of 
any  interested  persons  was  from  the  first  seen  to  be  an 
indispensable  part  of  the  Museum  equipment.  In  1875,  a 
year  before  the  first  building  was  opened,  a  Library  was 
assured  to  the  future  Museum  by  the  gift  of  a  thousand 
dollars.  The  Library  now  covers  all  the  branches  of  art 
represented  in  the  Museum  collections  and  contains  fifty 
thousand  volumes  whose  illustrations  are  supplemented 
by  an  equally  comprehensive  collection  of  fifty  thousand 
photographs.  The  books  include  twenty  thousand  vol- 
umes in  Chinese  and  Japanese  upon  the  art  and  history  of 
China  and  Japan;  and  the  photographs  a  large  section  on 
Italian  art  received  by  gift. 

What  has  the  Museum  done  with  the  great  endowment 
and  the  immense  collections  which  many  happy  fortunes 
of  the  past  half  century  have  placed  in  its  keeping  in  trust 
for  the  community?  In  part  the  collections  are  the  out- 
come of  the  endowment.  Of  the  funds  received  by  the  Mu- 


BUILDING  19 

seum,  about  a  million  and  a  quarter  dollars  have  been 
given  and  are  or  have  been  used,  either  principal  or  in- 
come, for  acquisitions  of  works  of  art.  A  number  of  other 
funds  have  been  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Trustees  with- 
out any  restrictions  as  to  the  us.e  either  of  principal  or 
income.  After  long  consideration  the  Trustees  many  years 
ago  adopted  the  policy  of  devoting  a  portion  of  the  princi- 
pal of  such  funds  to  acquisitions  of  the  highest  quality 
unobtainable  by  the  slow  process  of  accumulating  income. 
Tangible  and  permanent  evidence  of  the  use  of  the  Mu- 
seum endowment  for  acquisitions  appears  in  many  gal- 
leries. Every  object  thus  acquired  bears  the  name  of  the 
giver  of  the  fund  used.  Every  one  is  a  permanent  memorial 
associating  the  liberality  of  the  past  with  the  pleasure  and 
profit  of  the  present  and  future. 

The  endowment  has  also  made  possible  the  housing  and 
care  of  the  collections  in  an  adequate  building  on  spacious 
grounds,  their  safe  and  handsome  installation  for  preserva- 
tion and  exhibition;  and  their  exposition  to  all  comers  by 
the  written  or  spoken  word  of  the  men  of  special  knowl- 
edge called  to  add  to  and  take  charge  of  them. 

A  total  of  over  six  hundred  thousand  dollars  was  ob- 
tained by  popular  subscription  for  the  first  building  of  the 
Museum  on  Copley  Square;  and  when, 

in  1899,  this  location  had  become  impos-        r>    -i  i- 

Building 

sible  for  a  museum  on  account  of  the  ob- 
struction of  light  and  the  risk  of  fire  from 
nearby  buildings,  and  the  smoke,  dust  and  vibration  from 
nearby  traffic,  the  lot  of  ground  originally  given  for  a  mu- 
seum by  a  few  associates  acting  through  the  City  govern- 
ment was  sold  for  a  sum  which  provided  more  than  hah*  of 
the  three  million  dollars  expended  for  the  new  location  and 
building. 


MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 


THE  PRESENT  BUILDING,  AND  PROPOSED  ADDITIONS,  COMPARED  IN  SIZE  WITH  THE 
COPLEY  SQUARE  MUSEUM 

By  a  misapprehension  the  Copley  Square  property  is 
often  referred  to  as  the  single  gift  received  by  the  Museum 
from  other  than  a  private  source.  In  fact,  it  was  a  private 
gift  like  every  other  received  by  the  Museum.  The  original 
donors  specified  that  the  lot  should  eventually  be  held 
either  by  the  public  as  a  square,  or  by  an  institute  of  fine 
arts  as  the  site  of  its  building.  The  City's  part  consisted  in 
deciding  the  alternative  in  favor  of  the  museum  proposed  a 
few  years  later;  and  in  exempting  the  institution  from  tax- 
ation in  view  of  its  public  usefulness. 

The  present  building  of  the  Museum,  opened  in  1909, 
represented  an  epoch-making  advance  in  museum  archi- 
tecture. During  six  years  the  Trustees  had  devoted  to  the 
problem  of  the  removal  of  the  Museum  all  four  methods 
known  to  inquiry:  experience  gained  during  a  generation  at 
the  old  building;  experiment  in  a  temporary  structure 
erected  on  the  future  site;  observation  by  a  Commission 
which  visited  a  hundred  museums  in  Europe;  and  study 
devoted  to  the  existing  literature  of  museum  theory  and 
practice.  These  inquiries,  of  which  the  literary  fruit  was 
embodied  in  four  volumes  entitled  "Communications  to 
the  Trustees,"  and  the  concrete  outcome  was  the  present 


INSTALLATION  21 

building,  have  influenced  the  plan  of  every  museum  erected 
in  the  decade  since.  They  are  at  this  moment  effective  in 
many  projects  not  yet  realized  both  at  home  and  abroad. 
The  abandonment  of  small  courts  and  the  increased  use  of 
windows  in  the  interest  of  better  lighting,  the  structural 
separation  of  the  art  of  different  civilizations,  the  division 
of  space  between  rooms  for  study  and  rooms  for  exhibition, 
the  provision  of  agreeable  opportunities  for  rest  and  recre- 
ation —  all  of  these  demands  are  sought  to  be  met  in  this 
building  and  none  will  be  neglected  in  the  museums  of  the 
future.  The  Trustees  prepared  their  plans  fully  conscious 
of  the  possibility  that  they  might  have  their  greatest  value 
as  guides  to  others.  The  principles  here  embodied  have  be- 
fore them  many  possible  applications.  Already  in  our  own 
building,  when  the  munificent  gift  of  a  million  dollars 
brought  the  Museum  its  present  Galleries  of  Paintings,  the 
experience  of  the  temporary  picture  galleries  resulted  in 
monitor  skylights  for  the  new  ones,  and  the  admirable  illu- 
mination of  the  Courts  of  Casts  led  to  lighting  the  Tapestry 
Gallery  by  clerestory  windows. 

The  care  that  is  devoted  at  the  Museum  to  the  rich 
accumulation  of  objects  of  art  of  which  it  has  in  a  hah* 
century  become  the  abiding  place  is  but 
partially  manifest  in  the  galleries  of  exhi-     j     f  jj  t- 
bition.  Of  some  of  the  collections,  notably 
the  collections  of  European  prints  and 
those  of  Oriental  art,  only  a  very  small  portion  can  be 
shown  simultaneously.    Neither  European  prints  nor  Ori- 
ental objects  are  made  to  be  exhibited  by  museums-full. 
Herein  the  habits  of  the  East  and  West  are  at  one,  and 
demand  the  most  careful  provisions  for  the  safe-keeping 
and  accessibility  of  the  objects  not  exhibited.   For  it  is  the 
ambition  of  the  Museum  to  be  able  to  show  any  of  its  con- 


MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 


THE  TAPESTBY  GALLERY 

tents  at  any  time  to  any  properly  qualified  visitor.  The 
storage  of  pictures  makes  an  equally  serious  demand  upon 
the  space  and  the  facilities  of  the  Museum.  All  of  the  col- 
lections consist  of  more  or  less  perishable  things;  even  the 
bronzes  have  their  diseases;  and  moth,  rust  and  mildew, 
the  fading  of  tints,  and  the  decay  of  materials  are  enemies 
against  which  no  precautions  can  be  too  elaborate  or  com- 
plete. A  museum  has  no  limit  of  life,  and  its  contents  grow 
in  value  as  they  grow  in  age.  The  duty  of  their  preserva- 
tion is  an  anxious  responsibility  for  all  of  those  in  charge 
of  them. 

The  exhibition  of  the  collections  presents  a  new  series  of 
problems.  A  museum  may  be  compared  to  a  patchwork 
quilt,  but  only  in  the  varied  origin  and  fragmentary  nature 
of  its  contents.  For  to  make  a  pattern  of  its  patches  is  the 
last  thing  a  museum  should  attempt.  So  to  do  is  to  ask  of 
the  curator's  brain  an  artistic  combination  sure  to  lack 


EXPOSITION  23 

sympathy  with  the  intention  of  the  makers  of  the  objects 
combined.  To  show  them  as  the  fragments  that  they  are, 
to  abjure  the  interior-decorative  purpose  without  obtain- 
ing combinations  so  awkward  as  to  chill  the  mood  in  which 
the  fragments  are  approached  is  the  great  problem  of  mu- 
seum installation.  It  is  not  quickly  to  be  solved.  Many  of 
the  galleries  of  the  Museum  are  crude  and  unhomelike 
still.  Time  must  elapse  ere  they  can  be  a  proper  setting  for 
their  contents.  There  are  great  possibilities  in  all  the  ex- 
hibition spaces;  and  in  the  Rotunda  with  its  new  decora- 
tions the  Museum  will  have  a  reception  hall  worthy  of  the 
royal  presences  to  which  it  leads. 

True  to  the  traditions  of  the  city  as  the  focus  of  educa- 
tional effort  in  the  United  States,  the  Museum  in  Boston 
was  the  first  to  engage  men  of  special 

training  to  publish  its  collections.    It  is      771 

Exposition 
pleasant   to   recall   the   little   brochure 

("Companion  to  the  Catalogue")  in 
which,  by  the  sprightly  recital  of  an  imaginary  journey 
through  the  galleries,  the  Museum  was  recommended  to  its 
visitors  within  a  year  after  the  first  building  was  opened. 
The  publications  appearing  thereafter  during  many  years 
reflect  the  dependence  of  the  Museum  upon  temporary 
loans  for  its  exhibits.  Later  they  came  to  include  contribu- 
tions of  permanent  value  to  the  history  of  engraving  and 
to  classical  archaeology;  and  at  length  a  Catalogue  of  Jap- 
anese Pottery  whose  union  of  genius  with  patience  has 
carried  the  name  of  the  Museum  all  over  the  world.  The 
publications  which  have  since  appeared  under  the  auspices 
of  the  Museum  form  a  notable  series  well  worthy  of  the  lit- 
erary and  scientific  reputation  of  Boston.  They  include 
not  only  carefully  studied  lists  of  our  own  possessions,  but 
monographs,  historical  or  theoretical  in  content,  related  to 


24 


MUSEUM  OF  PINE  ARTS 


THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY  ROOM 

them.  At  the  moment  there  await  publication  several 
volumes,  among  them  an  elaborate  inquiry  into  Greek  de- 
sign, a  detailed  investigation  of  a  single  work  of  art,  and 
critical  catalogues  of  groups  of  others.  For  seventeen 
years  the  publications  of  the  Museum  have  included  an  il- 
lustrated bi-monthly  Bulletin  recording  its  activities.  It 
has  been  aimed  not  to  create  a  new  journal  of  art,  but  to 
maintain  an  adequate  chronicle  of  events  at  one  museum. 
In  the  immense  current  plethora  of  printed  matter  needing 
to  be  consulted  by  interested  persons,  it  has  been  felt  as  a 
duty  to  consider  carefully  just  the  kind  of  information  such 
a  Bulletin  could  give,  and  to  give  it  in  the  fewest  possible 
words.  The  "Handbook  of  the  Museum"  was  first  pub- 
lished fourteen  years  ago  on  a  novel  plan  as  an  illustrated 
anthology  of  the  Museum,  a  companion  and  souvenir  of 
Museum  visits.  A  foreign  critic  wrote:  "A  better  example 
of  a  museum  handbook  .  .  .  could  hardly  be  imagined  by 
the  most  exacting  mind."  The  book  is  in  its  thirteenth  edi- 


EXPOSITION 


THE  JAPANESE  COUHT 

tion,  and  about  2500  copies  a  year  are  called  for  by  Mu- 
seum visitors.  For  several  years  and  until  the  War,  the 
Museum  published  also  "The  Print  Collector's  Quarterly," 
the  only  periodical  devoted  to  awakening  and  gratifying 
the  taste  for  fine  engraving  among  English-speaking 
people.  The  Quarterly  in  effect  extended  to  the  whole  art 
of  engraving  the  work  of  the  Museum  in  the  exposition  of 
its  own  collections.  For  the  narrower  purpose,  a  new  type 
of  publication  was  devised  at  the  Museum  ten  years  ago. 
A  "Gallery  Book"  is  a  pamphlet,  typewritten  and  mani- 
folded, aiming  to  aid  the  visitor  in  comprehending  every 
object  shown  in  the  gallery  where  it  is  installed  as  a  lending 
copy.  The  Gallery  Books  are  issued  in  increasing  numbers 
every  year  under  the  supervision  of  the  heads  of  the  de- 
partments concerned. 

The  Museum  was  the  first  also  to  offer  visitors  oral  com- 
ment upon  the  collections.  In  1906  it  was  proposed  that 
members  of  the  Staff  be  commissioned  to  explain  the  ex- 
hibits to  visitors  in  the  galleries;  and  the  old  English  ad- 


MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 


THE  PRINT  STUDY 


'  jective  "Docent"  was  applied  to  the  new  form  of  service. 
The  plan  was  carried  out  in  the  following  year  and  has  been 
widely  adopted  elsewhere  in  this  country  and  abroad, 
either  as  an  occasional  duty  of  a  whole  museum  personnel 
with  invited  aids,  according  to  the  method  adopted  here,  or 
as  an  office  apart.  Within  a  few  months  the  Louvre  in 
Paris  has  begun  to  offer  its  visitors  information  about  the 
collections  through  the  guardians  in  the  galleries  who  are 
given  special  instruction  to  that  end.  At  our  own  Museum, 
during  the  past  thirteen  years,  the  method  has  grown  into 
a  developed  system  adapted  to  the  needs  of  every  age  and 
condition. 

Within  six  months  after  the  opening  of  the  first  building 
in  Copley  Square,  an  organization  of  men  and  women 
asked  and  obtained  permission  from  the  Trustees  to  carry 
on  classes  for  technical  instruction  in  various  branches  of 
fine  art  in  the  Museum  building  under  the  name  of  the 
School  of  Drawing  and  Painting.  The  instruction  has  been 
maintained  continuously  to  this  day;  the  School  of  Draw- 
ing and  Painting  becoming  in  1908  by  announcement  of 
the  Trustees  the  School  of  the  Museum.  None  of  the  funds 


STAFF  27 

of  the  Museum  are  devoted  to  the  expenses  of  the  School; 
but  a  standing  offer  by  the  Trustees  to  receive  and  admin- 
ister any  sums  offered  for  its  purposes  has  led  to  several 
contributions  toward  a  permanent  endowment.  The 
School  gives  instruction  of  high  character  in  painting, 
modelling  and  design,  in  part  by  lectures  in  the  Museum. 
The  School  is  proud  that  its  Roll  of  Honor  in  the  Great 
War  bears  forty  stars. 


The  practice  of  appointing  men  of  special  training  in 
charge  of  branches  of  the  collections  of  the  Museum  is  now 
a  generation  old.  In  1885,  when  the  first 
appointments  were  made,  the  organiza-  ^     /r 

tion  of  museums  of  art  in  America  was 
still  in  embryo.  From  the  first  the  phrase 
"charge  of  the  collections"  was  understood  to  combine  the 
care,  exhibition,  study,  and  exposition  of  the  existing  pos- 
sessions of  the  Museum  with  advice  regarding  their  in- 
crease.   The  establishment  of  separate  departments  has 
awaited  the  selection  of  men  fitted  for  these  duties.   Two 
were  appointed  in  1885,  in  charge  respectively  of  engrav- 
ings and  classical  archaeology;  and  the  collections  are  now 
completely  organized  under  seven  curators  or  keepers. 


THE  SHOWER  AT  THE  SHHINE 


28  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 


KUAN-YIN  Chinese,  Twelfth  Century 

The  divisions  recognized  are  the  Departments  of  Prints 
(1887),  Classical  Art  (1887),  Chinese  and  Japanese  Art 
(1890),  Egyptian  Art  (1902),  Paintings  (1902),  Western 
Art  (1910),  and  the  Section  of  Indian  Art  (1917).  About 
forty  persons  have  at  different  times  been  in  charge  of  one 
or  another  department.  The  list  includes  six  who  have  been 
directors  of  other  museums  or  schools  of  art  (one  in  Japan) ; 
six  who  have  been  professors  at  neighboring  colleges;  two 
who  are  now  curators  at  other  museums  (one  at  the 
Louvre) ;  two  who  before  their  selection  had  won  interna- 
tional reputations  as  pioneer  students  each  in  his  chosen 
branch;  and  a  number  whose  right  to  the  title  expert  is 
attested  by  elaborate  investigations  chiefly  published  else- 
where. 

The  demands  of  the  modern  museum  upon  its  curators 
may  already  be  said  to  have  created  a  new  profession. 
Their  functions  both  as  advisers  to  the  Museum  regarding 


CORPORATION  29 

acquisitions  and  expositors  to  the  public  of  the  works  ac- 
quired develop  the  qualities  of  the  critic  conceived  as  in- 
terpreter. Of  these  functions  the  second  would  persist  even 
were  our  museums  to  cease  to  grow.  The  duty  of  interpret- 
ing their  existing  riches  to  successive  generations  in  the 
new  light  that  progressive  inquiry  could  throw  across  the 
ever-widening  gap  between  object  and  visitor  is  one  which 
time  makes  only  more  exacting.  In  due  course  the  mu- 
seum of  art  will  be  recognized  as  the  natural  home  of  the 
interpreter  of  painting  and  sculpture,  as  the  theatre  and 
the  concert  hall  is  the  habitat  of  the  critic  of  drama  and 
music.  In  this  advance  our  Museum  has  led  the  way  in 
America. 

A  careful  method  of  choosing  the  responsible  owners-in- 
trust of  the  Museum  property  was  laid  down  in  the  Act  of 
their  incorporation.   The  Board  of  Trus- 
tees is  not  a  close  corporation.  The  pub-       ^ 
lie  directly  or  indirectly  chooses  four  of  * 

their  number  —  the  Mayor  of  Boston, 
the  President  of  the  Trustees  of  the  Public  Library,  the 
Commissioner  of  Education,  and  the  Superintendent  of 
Schools.  Established  institutions  in  Boston  choose  ten, 
Harvard  College,  the  Athenaeum,  and  the  Institute  of 
Technology  each  choosing  three  annually,  and  the  Lowell 
Institute  sending  its  Trustee.  Sixteen  other  Trustees  are 
named  in  the  charter,  and  then*  successors  are  chosen  by 
the  whole  Board.  The  Trustees  appointed  or  elected  have 
contained  a  large  representation  of  the  professional  inter- 
ests of  the  community  in  the  Museum.  They  have  in- 
cluded the  successive  Presidents  of  Harvard  and  of  the 
Institute  of  Technology,  a  Librarian  and  Secretary  of  the 
Athenaeum,  a  Treasurer  of  Harvard,  a  President  of  Trinity 
College,  five  professors  of  Harvard,  two  professors  from  the 


30  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 


THE  SEVERN  AND  THE  WYE  Mezzotint.    J.  M.  W.  Turner  (1775-1851) 

Institute  of  Technology,  a  Director  of  the  Fogg  Art  Mu- 
seum, successive  Chairmen  and  Secretaries  of  the  Museum 
School  Council,  two  instructors  at  the  School,  and  three  of 
the  administrative  heads  of  the  Museum  itself. 

Fifteen  years  ago  the  Trustees  adopted  the  practice  of 
calling  to  their  aid  in  an  advisory  capacity  bodies  of  citi- 
zens named  as  visitors  to  one  or  another  branch  of  the  Mu- 
seum organization.  The  Visiting  Committees  form  no  part 
of  the  administrative  machinery  of  the  Museum.  They  are 
its  circle  of  intimate  friends  appointed  to  learn  more  defi- 
nitely the  needs  of  the  Museum  and  the  opportunities  it 
offers,  in  order  to  share  their  knowledge  with  the  rest  of  the 
public  which  the  Museum  exists  to  serve  and  from  which  it 
derives  its  support.  The  Visiting  Committees  include  both 
men  and  women.  Their  numbers  are  not  limited  nor  is  the 
choice  of  their  membership  restricted.  Through  such  an 
advisory  body  as  the  Visiting  Committee  on  the  Admin- 
istration of  the  Museum,  the  Trustees  have  the  oppor- 
tunity of  obtaining  a  sympathetic  and  well-informed  view 
of  any  question  relating  to  its  future  from  a  body  widely 
representing  the  community.  With  the  Subscribers  to  the 


NEEDS  31 

annual  expenses  of  the  Museum,  a  much  larger  body  and 
of  still  older  date,  the  Visiting  Committees  are  the  existing 
representatives  of  the  tens  of  thousands  of  citizens  to  whose 
unfailing  interest  and  inexhaustible  generosity  the  Mu- 
seum has  owed  its  life  and  growth. 

The  gifts  of  individuals  have  endowed  the  Museum  with 
the  essentials  of  a  great  artistic  foundation:  grounds  ideal 
in  situation  and  adequate  for  an  indefi- 
nite future;  a  building  sufficient  for  the          *r      i 
present  and  planned  for  all  reasonable 
expansion;   collections  which   insure  to 
Boston  a  permanent  place  among  the  foremost  art  treas- 
uries of  the  world;  and  an  organization  of  corporate  and 
professional  control  equal  to  the  active  and  successful  ] 
management  of  the  institution.   Nevertheless,  a  vital  lack  ' 
remains.    The  means  do  not  yet  exist  with  which  to  keep 
adequately  in  motion  this  great  engine  of  culture.    Ihe, 
Museum  has  not  the  money  for  the  proper  preservation, 
exhibition,  and  publication  of  its  collections   and  their    > 
interpretation  to  the  people.     With  close  and  even  dam- 
aging economies  its  annual  expenses  are  now  nearly  two 
hundred  thousand  dollars ;  and  the  income  of  the  Museum 
from  all  sources  available  to  meet  them  is  but  about  one 
hundred  and  sixty  thousand  dollars;  leaving  a  debit  balance 
of  about  forty  thousand  dollars  to  be  made  up  annually 
from  principal.  Similar  deficiencies  in  the  budgets  of  other 
museums  may  be  and  are  met  by  municipal  appropriations.  -^ 
The  Metropolitan  Museum  of  New  York  with  its  six 
hundred  thousand  dollars  of  annual  expenses  will  obtain 
hah*  of  this  great  sum  from  the  City  of  New  York  in  the    I 
year  1920.    The  buildings  and  the  site  of  the  Museum  are 
likewise  provided  by  the  City.    In  1919  the  Art  Institute   { 
of  Chicago  with  three  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars 


32  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 

(  of  disbursements  for  maintenance  obtained  one  hundred 
\  and  fifty  thousand  from  the  City.  Our  Museum  has  never 
received  a  penny  of  public  money;  and  the  new  Constitu- 
tion of  the  State  has  just  closed  that  source  for  the  future. 
\A  fund  of  two  million  dollars  of  which  the  income  may 
be  used  for  current  expenses  is  the  immediate  and  impera- 
tive need  of  the  Museum ;  and  if  it  is  to  advance  with  our 
community  as  other  museums  advance  with  theirs,  it 
should  look  forward  to  an  eventual  maintenance  endow- 
ment much  larger  in  amount.  Those  engaged  in  the  serv- 
ice of  the  Museum  unite  in  the  confident  belief  that  the 
means  required  to  make  and  keep  its  growing  advantages 
available  to  the  whole  community  will  now  and  later  be 
abundantly  provided. 


DECEMBER,  1920. 


BENJAMIN  IVES  GILMAN, 

Secretary  of  the  Museum. 


THE  COMPLETED  MUSEUM 


MUSEUM  ANNALS  33 


MUSEUM  ANNALS 

1869  Bequest  to  the  Athenaeum  from  Col.  T.  B.  Lawrence  of  a 
collection  of  arms  and  armor.   Offer  from  Mrs.  Lawrence 
of  $25,000  toward  the  foundation  of  a  new  gallery. 

1870  February  4th.   The  Museum  incorporated  under  the  name 
of  the  Trustees  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  "for  the 
purpose  of  erecting  a  museum  for  the  preservation  and 
exhibition  of  works  of  art,  of  making,  maintaining,  and 
exhibiting  collections  of  such  works  and  of  instruction 
in  the  Fine  Arts." 

March  17th.  Martin  Brimmer,  first  President. 
Henry  P.  Kidder,  first  Treasurer. 
J.  Elliot  Cabot,  first  Secretary. 

May  26th.  Award  to  the  Museum  by  the  city  of  land  on 
Copley  Square  lately  received  by  gift  from  the  Boston 
Water  Power  Company  in  trust  to  be  used  either  for  an 
Institute  of  Fine  Arts  or  for  an  open  square.  The  award 
specifies  that  the  Museum  is  to  be  open  free  to  the  public 
at  least  four  days  a  month. 

1872    Exhibition  of  the  collections  of  the  Museum,  given,  lent, 
and  purchased,  in  two  of  the  picture  galleries  of  the 
Athenaeum. 
Destruction  of  the  Lawrence  armor  in  the  Great  Fire. 

1876  January  21st.  The  Museum  placed  under  the  general 
charge  and  management  of  a  Curator  (from  1887  Direc- 
tor). 

Charles  C.  Perkins,  Honorary  Director. 

Charles  G.  Loring,  Curator. 

April  20th.   Henry  Richards,  second  Secretary. 

July  4th.   West  half  of  the  Copley  Square  wing  of  the 
proposed  Museum  building  opened  to  the  public. 
Saturday  established  as  a  free  day. 


34  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 

1877  January  2nd.   Permission  given  to  the  School  of  Drawing 
and  Painting  to  hold  classes  in  the  Museum  building. 

January  18th.  Museum  to  be  open  on  Sundays  as  a  free 
day. 

1878  July  18th.   Edward  H.  Greenleaf,  third  Secretary. 

1879  July  1st.   Completed  wing  on  Copley  Square  opened  to 
the  public. 

July  17th.   Library  of  the  Museum  established. 

1882    First  loan  by  the  Museum;  a  painting  exhibited  at  the 
Royal  Academy,  London. 

May.   Photographs  of  objects  in  the  Museum  first  sold  at 
*       the  entrance. 

1885  Sylvester   R.    Koehler,    Curator    of    Gray    engravings. 
Edward  Robinson,  Curator  in  classical  archaeology. 

1886  March  20th.   John  L.  Gardner,  second  Treasurer. 

1887  February  1st.   Print  Department  established. 
Catalogue  of  Rembrandt  etchings  published;  the  first 
special  catalogue  issued  by  the  Museum. 

March  1st.   Department  of  Classical  Antiquities  estab- 
lished. 
Use  of  the  department  rooms  offered  to  students. 

April  21st.   Office   of  Honorary   Director   discontinued. 
Title  of  Curator  of  the  Museum  changed  to  Director. 
Sylvester  R.  Koehler,  first  Curator  of  the  Print  Depart- 
ment. 
Edward  Robinson,  first  Curator  of  Classical  Antiquities. 

1890    March  15th.   Department  of  Japanese  Art  established. 
Ernest  F.  Fenollosa,  first  Curator  of  the  Department. 

March  18th.  Completed  building  on  Copley  Square 
opened  to  the  public.  A  corridor,  and  structures  connect- 
ing it  with  the  Copley  Square  wing  and  enclosing  a  court, 
were  the  final  additions  to  the  building. 


MUSEUM  ANNALS  35 

1892    March  1st.   Edward  S.  Morse,  first  Keeper  of  Japanese 
Pottery. 

First  lecture  course  at  the  Museum;  "The  Photo-mechan- 
ical Processes." 

1894  January  18th.   Benjamin  Ives  Gilman,  fourth  Secretary. 

1895  First  issue  of  free  tickets  to  a  teacher  and  pupils. 

1896  February  13th.   William  Endicott,  Jr.,  second  President. 
First  experimental  test  of  gallery  guidance.    From  De- 
cember 29,  1895  to  April  26,  1896,  representatives  of  the 
Twentieth  Century  Club  were  present  on  Sunday  after- 
noons in  the  Galleries  of  Casts,  by  permission  of  the  Trus- 
tees and  under  the  supervision  of  the  Secretary  to  explain 
the  exhibits  to  visitors. 

1897  Loans  by  the  Museum  for  purposes  of  instruction  begun 
by  an  exhibit  sent  to  the  Lowell  Textile  School. 

1898  December  19th.   Charles  Lowell,  third  Treasurer. 
The  Textile  Study  opened  to  students. 

1899  October  19th.    Walter  M.  Cabot,  second  Curator  of  the 
Department  of  Japanese  Art. 

December  1st.  The  present  site  of  the  Museum  on  Hunt- 
ington  Avenue  and  the  Fenway  purchased. 

1900  First  loan  of  photographs  from  the  Museum  collection. 

1901  January  19th.   Samuel  D.  Warren,  third  President. 

October  17th.  The  School  of  Drawing  and  Painting  recog- 
nized and  adopted  by  the  Trustees  under  the  title  of  "The 
School  of  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts." 

1902  April  22nd.   Land  and  building  on  Copley  Square  sold. 
May  27th.   Edward  Robinson,  second  Director. 

August  1st.  Keepership  of  Paintings  established.  John 
Briggs  Potter,  first  Keeper. 

September  15th.  Department  of  Egyptian  Art  estab- 
lished. 


36  MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 

October  16th.   Albert  M.  Lythgoe,  first  Curator  of  the 

Department. 

Photograph  Study  opened  to  the  public. 

1903  March.  First  number  of  the  Museum  Bulletin  issued. 

April  28th.  Title  of  the  Japanese  Department  changed 
to  the  Department  of  Chinese  and  Japanese  Art. 

July  16th.  Paul  Chalfin,  third  Curator  of  the  Depart- 
ment. 

1904  January  2nd.   Departure  of  the  Museum  Commission  for 
three  months'  study  of  European  museums. 

January  21st.  Title  of  Secretary  changed  to  Secretary  of 
the  Museum. 

Museum  lectures  under  the  auspices  of  Simmons  College 
and  others  begun. 

October  20th.  Emil  H.  Richter,  second  Curator  of  the 
Print  Department. 

1905  July  20th.   Inauguration    of    the    Harvard   University- 
Museum  of  Fine  Arts  Egyptian  Expedition. 

First  loan  of  lantern  slides  of  Museum  objects. 

1906  January  12th.   Okakura-Kakuzo,  fourth  Curator  of  the 
Department  of  Chinese  and  Japanese  Art. 

January  18th.  J.  Randolph  Coolidge,  Jr.,  first  Tempo- 
rary Director. 

Visiting  Committees  established. 

March.  Lecture  room  opened.  Class  room  for  the  use  of 
visiting  instructors  and  others  opened. 

May  23rd.  First  meeting  of  a  Committee  to  promote  the 
Utilization  of  the  Museum  by  Colleges  and  Schools. 

June.  Bulletin  announcement  of  the  proposed  appoint- 
ment of  Docents  to  explain  exhibits  to  visitors  in  the 
galleries. 

First  edition  of  the  Handbook  of  the  Museum  issued. 
July  19th.   Francis  L.  Higginson,  fourth  Treasurer. 


MUSEUM  ANNALS  37 

1907  Postal  cards  of  objects  in  the  Museum  first  put  on  sale. 
January  17th.    Gardiner  Martin  Lane,  fourth  President. 
Benjamin  Ives  Gilman,  second  Temporary  Director. 
April  1st.   Garrick  Mallory  Borden,  first  Decent  at  the 
Museum. 

April  llth.   Ground  broken  for  the  present  building  on 
Huntington  Avenue  and  the  Fenway. 
May  24th.   Arthur  Fairbanks,  third  Director  and  second 
Curator  of  the  Department  of  Classical  Art. 

1908  January.   Advisory    Committee    on    Education    estab- 
lished to  take  the  place  of  the  Committee  on  Utilization. 
First  series  of  Thursday   Conferences  in  the  galleries. 
January  to  March,  first  series  of  Sunday  talks,  provided 
for  by  friends  of  the  Museum. 

1909  May  2nd.   Copley  Square  building  closed. 

November  15th.   Huntington  Avenue  building  opened  to 

the  public. 

Collegiate   Courses   for   teachers   and  others  arranged; 

Teachers'  Lists  of  objects  in  the  Museum  issued;  Pupils' 

Sheets  of  illustrations  from  Museum  objects  offered  to  the 

schools;  Collection  of  framed  photographs  lent  to  the 

schools. 

1910  April  21st.  Frank  Gair  Macomber,  Honorary  Curator  of 
Western  Art. 

July  21st.   George  A.   Reisner,   second  Curator  of  the 
Department  of  Egyptian  Art. 

Collegiate   Courses   taken   over  by   the   Committee   of 
University  Extension  Courses  in  Boston. 

1911  May  llth.   Jean  Guiffrey,  first  Curator  of  Paintings. 
May.   Gift  of  the  Robert  Dawson  Evans  Galleries  of 
Paintings. 

l'.H>    April  9th.  Lacey  D.  Caskey,  third  Curator  of  the  De- 
partment of  Classical  Art. 

October  17th.   FitzRoy  Carrington,  third  Curator  of  the 
Print  Department. 


!4**:;V;«>  ?  ~  k°* 
S'a.-v*  •  t;  :.„:>%•  ^ 

38 


MUSEUM  OF  FINE  ARTS 

January  16th.   Huger  Elliott,  first  Supervisor  of  Educa- 

tional Work. 

First  Gallery  Books  for  the  use  of  visitors  installed  in  con- 

nection  with   exhibits    of   the    Chinese    and   Japanese 

Department. 

First  illustrated  lectures  at  the  Museum  for  pupils  of  the 
School. 

1914  October  30th.   Morris  Gra>,  fifth  President. 

First  Saturday  afternoon  Picture  and  Story  hours  for  the 
children  of  the  public  schools. 

1915  February  3rd.   Robert    Dawson    Evans     Galleries    for 
Paintings  opened  to  the  public. 

1916  January  20th.   John    E.    Lodge,    fifth    Curator    of    the 
Department  of  Chinese  and  Japanese  Art. 

1917  March  29th.   William  Endicott,  fifth  Treasurer. 

April  26th.   Keepership    of    Indian    Art    established. 
Ananda  K.  Coomaraswamy,  first  Keeper. 
June  14th.   William  C.  Endicott,  sixth  Treasurer. 

1918  January  17th.   The  Museum  opened  free  to  all. 

1919  July  17th.   Malcolm  Storer,  Honorary  Keeper  of  Coins. 

1920  April  13th.   First  concert  in  the  Museum  building. 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  MUSEUM,  1920 

MORRIS  GRAY,  President 

WILLIAM  CROWNINSHIELD  ENDICOTT,  Treasurer 

ARTHUR  FAIRBANKS,  Director 

BENJAMIN  IVES  GILMAN,  Secretary  of  the  Museum 

JOHN  ELIOT  THAYER,  Jr.,  Assistant  Treasurer 


DEPARTMENTS  OF  THE  MUSEUM,  1920 

Print* 

FiTzRoY  CARRINGTON,  Curator 

HENRY  PRESTON  ROSSITER,  Assistant  Curator 

Classical  Art 

LACEY  DAVIS  CASKEY,  Curator 

Chinese  and  Japanese  Art 

JOHN  ELLERTON  LODGE,  Curator 

KOJIRO  TOMITA,  Assistant  Curator 

EDWARD  SYLVESTER  MORSE,  Keeper  of  Japanese  Pottery 

FRANCIS  STEWART  KERSHAW,  Keeper  in  the  Department 

Section  of  Indian  Art 

ANANDA  K.  COOMARASWAMY,  Keeper 

Egyptian  Art 

GEORGE  ANDREW  REISNER,  Curator 
Dows  DUNHAM,  Assistant  Curator 

Paintings 

JOHN  BRIGGS  POTTER,  Keeper 

Western  Art 

EDWIN  JAMES  HIPKISS,  Keeper  in  the  Department 
Mrs.  CHARLES  WENDELL  TOWNSEND,  Adviser  in  Textiles 
Miss  GERTRUDE  TOWNSEND,  Assistant  in  Charge  of  Textiles 

Library 

ROSCOE  LORING  DUNN,  Assistant  in  Charge 
Miss  MARTHA  FENDERSON,  Assistant  Librarian 
Miss  FRANCES  ELLIS  TURNER,  Assistant  in  Charge  of  Photo- 
graphs 


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